"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Will Humans Evolve Into Machines?

Tenet 3(f) of Ecocosmology recognizes that if the human species morphs or evolves into a species that does not depend on central stars with habitable planets orbiting them, the need for infinite nomadic travel from solar system to solar system can be avoided.

The notion of evolution into machines seems like science fiction, however, some serious and viable scientists think human evolution into machines is the only viable reality for survival of the human species:

In a futuristic mode similar to Hawking, both Steven Dick, chief NASA historian and Carnegie-Mellon robotics pundit, Hans Moravec, believe that human biological evolution is but a passing phase: the future of mankind will be as vastly evolved sentient machines capable of self-replicating and exploring the farthest reaches of the Universe programmed with instructions on how to recreate earth life and humans to target stars.

Dick believes that if there is a flaw in the logic of the Fermi Paradox, and extraterrestrials are a natural outcome of cosmic evolution, then cultural evolution may have resulted in a post-biological universe in which machines are the predominant intelligence.

(Space Colonization). In the post Putting a Face on Machine Mutation linked to above, there is a discussion about machines evolving into biotic organisms many millions of years ago:

"Our cells, and the cells of all organisms, are composed of molecular machines. These machines are built of component parts, each of which contributes a partial function or structural element to the machine. How such sophisticated, multi-component machines could evolve has been somewhat mysterious, and highly controversial." Professor Lithgow said.

...

"François Jacob described evolution as a tinkerer, cobbling together proteins of one function to yield more complex machines capable of new functions." Professor Lithgow said.

"Our work describes a perfect example of Jacob's proposition, and shows that Darwin's theory of evolution beautifully explains how molecular machines came to be."